Reo Hatate sat out the first two away games of the season at Dingwall and Kilmarnock after coming in for some rough treatment in the season opener against Aberdeen at Celtic Park. The Japanese midfielder was carrying an injury in match day away to Ross County but had returned to training ahead of the trip to Rugby Park last Sunday.
However Ange Postecoglou took a cautious approach and decided not to risk Hatate on the artificial playing surface. And the news today is that not only is Hatate back in the match-day squad for Sunday’s Scottish Premiership match against Hearts at Celtic Park but the players who played last week against Kilmarnock have all come through that particular challenge unscathed and everyone is good to go on Sunday, and incidentally that includes Alexandro Bernabei, an unused substitute last week who subsequently got himself into some trouble but will be available on Sunday.
On Reo Hatate’s fitness, Ange Postecoglou confirmed at today’s Media Conference that the midfielder is back and hopefully he’ll get a little more protection from referee Kevin Clancy on Sunday.
“He’s good, and he has trained all week. As I said last week, we just thought with the game on the plastic surface, it would not be wise to bring him back. So he is good and available,” Ange said.
You can spot Reo in this training video from this morning’s session…
“Everyone else from last week is also all clear,” the Celtic manager added.
On the Bernabei situation Ange had this to say, and it was short and to the point.”He is training and available.
“There was an incident earlier in the week and now there are processes taking place both externally and internally. When they come to a conclusion, we will take the appropriate measures.”
Nothing more needs to be said about that at this stage. One player unlikely to be involved on Sunday is Mikey Johnston, but the winger would nevertheless have been encouraged by the manager’s assessment of his footballing abilities.
“Mikey I’m really keen to get some game-time. He’s an outstanding talent and just hasn’t been able to get a good run of games. A different environment for him, I think he can start realising the potential we know he has.”
Callum McGregor, speaking to the Celtic fan media earlier this week, talked about having to go away to Notts County on loan in order to be ready to make the breakthrough as a Celtic player. That’s an example that Mikey Johnston can learn from and it’s crucial that he selects the correct club where he will get that game-time playing in a team that is challenging for promotion rather than fighting relegation.
Sunderland appear to be among the clubs interested in talking to Mikey about a loan move from Celtic.
Here’s Ange’s Media Conference from earlier today…
